Feelings were the world’s best photo filter. How else could Tonya explain the difference between how she’d once seen the man across from her and how she viewed him now? He was older, of course. The near-dozen years that had passed since she’d been with him were visible in the once-faint lines that now bled into his cheeks. But a few more wrinkles couldn’t account for all the physical attributes that she’d once found attractive now appearing offensive. The perma-tanned skin that she’d considered a mark of success—of a career that followed the sun—now looked fake and vain. His army-style haircut was an effort to stave off balding rather than evidence of a man too masculine and practical to primp. The button-down shirt, unbuttoned one notch too many, wasn’t sexy but trying too hard.
“So, as we were saying, the new account needs to operate differently.”
Glen Kelner adjusted his face mask, perhaps to draw Tonya’s attention from Layla’s father to the matter at hand. In person, Kelner was far less intimidating than on the phone. He had receding mousy brown hair and a weak chin that faded into his neck. His rumpled suit only added to the feeble impression. Looks weren’t everything, of course. Still, seeing him, Tonya was annoyed that she’d let herself be bullied by a guy who didn’t look the part of power player.
“It should be a custodial account in Layla’s name operated by a fiduciary, namely myself. Mr. Redsell will fund the account in a similar manner. And the rent will be paid through direct withdrawals to…”
Kelner’s words melded together into an unintelligible drone. The lawyer might as well have been reading a manual on how to assemble a blender or the fine print of a lengthy phone service contract. Tonya couldn’t pay attention to the speech—not when she was finally in a room with the man she’d hated for so long who, ironically, also possessed features of the person she loved most in life. Layla had inherited her biological father’s smoky blue eyes. Her nose, too, was a paternal hand-me-down with its upturned tip that called for kisses. Tonya had pecked that nose so often when Layla was a child. So strange to want to break it on the thinly masked face across from her.
“You’re getting divorced.” Tonya’s interruption was the equivalent of pulling a power cord, cutting off the background buzz of Kelner’s voice.
Rick Redsell finally met her gaze. He’d been staring at Kelner, pretending to scrutinize the attorney’s every word. Without his lawyer speaking, there was no choice but for Rick to face the girl he’d seduced after she’d been rejected by his famous director client for an unconvincing sexual simulation that they’d all known had, later, gone far beyond “acting.” He’d consoled and complimented her the evening following that fateful night. He’d even told off Nate for letting things go too far. Rick had won her over by acting as her knight in shining armor.
She should have known that no man could be honorable and still entertain a friend who so easily used his position to take advantage of women. But she’d let her ego be soothed by Rick’s attention and flattered by his success. And, as much as she was ashamed to admit it, the fact that he’d been a big-time agent and, therefore, capable of boosting her career hadn’t exactly hurt.
“That’s why your wife hired the forensic accountant, right?” Tonya asked. “You’re getting divorced.”
Rick grabbed his right side, as if he had a cramp by his ribs. He took a shallow breath. “Does it matter?”
“Did she catch you having an affair?” Tonya asked.
Rick glanced at his attorney. Kelner averted his eyes to the papers in front of him, perhaps embarrassed by his client. Though the guy was being paid to cover up Rick’s transgressions, he had to pity Mrs. Redsell. In retrospect, even Tonya felt bad for Rick’s wife, though she’d conveniently ignored any such sympathies when she’d been falling for her husband.
“We’re going our separate ways.” Rick leaned back into the plush chair in front of his attorney’s heavy desk. “The kids are grown, so there’s little point pretending anymore.”
Tonya dug her fingernails into the fabric arms of her own chair. If there was no point in lying, then why had he allowed his wife to close the account? Why hadn’t he immediately wired money so that she and Layla could remain in their apartment?
Rick seemed to sense her questions before she asked them. He gestured to Kelner. “Earlier, I was under the impression that my relationship with my wife, though not really much of a marriage, was salvageable. But as I now understand it, she’d hired a private investigator and was already looking into the finances. She had pictures of me…” Rick trailed off with a shrug. “Anyway. It doesn’t matter. I have a girlfriend. She knows. I’m moving on.”
His wife had learned of his affair and was leaving him. Tonya couldn’t help but wonder if things would have turned out differently had she refused to keep Layla a secret. Perhaps Rick would have had no choice but to divorce his wife and be a father to her daughter. He would never have been a faithful husband to her, of course. Tonya was not so naïve as to think that she would have fared any better than his spouse. But Rick might have filled a position that, given Layla’s reaction to his existence, she’d been wanting.
Tonya forced herself to focus. She was here for Layla’s money, and Rick still hadn’t explained why he’d stopped paying, nor when he would start to do so. “In the interest of moving on, when can I expect child support payments to be restored?”
The attorney cleared his throat. “The issue, unfortunately, is that all significant expenditures must be submitted to Mrs. Redsell’s attorneys, and as per my client’s prior prenuptial agreement, certain actions carry a cost. In the interest of avoiding unnecessary expenses—”
“You mean that he gets charged every time he has an affair, so he still needs to keep Layla’s existence quiet.” Tonya fought a smirk. “How much does he get charged?”
“The terms of Mr. Redsell’s prenuptial agreement are really none of your concern,” Kelner said.
“On the contrary, they are my concern, as they’re why I’m not currently receiving my legally required child support. If he was paying, I wouldn’t be here. And as I’ve made clear, I see no reason to keep Layla’s parentage secret now that you, Mr. Kelner, revealed that she wasn’t the result of a sperm donation.”
Kelner winced. “Well, as I explained, I—”
“The divorce will probably take a year.” Rick looked at her like she disgusted him. “How much more do you want to shut up for twelve months or so?”
“Three hundred grand.”
The figure rolled off her tongue, even though Tonya hadn’t realized she’d come into the office with an amount in mind. Since being booted from her apartment, she’d been thinking about the cost of getting Layla into a more stable environment, and she also wanted a bit added for pain and suffering—compensation for Layla’s pain and a bit of financial suffering for Rick. Her subconscious had apparently been running the numbers.
Rick started to stand from his chair. Before he got up, he gripped his side and slumped back into the seat. “That’s nuts.” He gestured aggressively at his attorney. “That’s way more than I’d have to pay in child support.”
“Crazy, huh?” Tonya tightened her grip on her chair arms, fighting the urge to rise and meet Rick’s volume. “Imagine what these past few weeks have been like for Layla. Here she is, an eleven-year-old girl going to school in the midst of a pandemic, wearing masks on the subway as she commutes to and from classes, worried about contracting a deadly virus. Yet, in spite of everything, she feels somewhat safe because she’s lived in the same nice apartment for a decade. She’s always had food on the table and clothes on her back. She feels secure and loved. Then, overnight, all that safety is taken away. She learns that there is a father out there who knows of her existence but wants nothing to do with her, and she’s thrown out of her apartment because you abruptly stopped paying child support without any warning. Large guys barge in while I’m at work, taking all her stuff, tossing it on the street, breaking photo frames, and ripping up her artwork.”
Tonya’s voice caught on the memory. As she composed herself, she realized that Kelner must be a father. The man’s eyes looked sad.
Rick folded his hands like a hammer. He beat the air once before letting his hands drop onto the chair arms.
Tonya transferred her stare to his slumped figure across from her. “I want a down payment on a home to make sure that Layla never deals with anything like that again. And I don’t think that’s crazy, especially given that she knows she has a dad out there, desperately wants to reach out to you, and you’re asking me to deny telling her your identity for a whole year and support her on a waitress’s salary alone. There won’t be any extras for her. No new clothes. No shoes if she grows out of them. We are staying in a room in my boss’s home at the moment. Layla has to go to school with their kids, feeling like a homeless charity case. You don’t think she deserves to maybe have some stability after all she’s going through—all you’ve put her through.”
Rick’s eyes dropped to his lap. “I didn’t know. I…uh…I’m sorry…I understand.”
“Do you?”
Rick pressed his eyelids shut with his thumb and forefinger. “It will take time. But once the divorce is finalized, I’ll make sure you get the down payment and the back child support. I’ll sign something to that effect.”
Tonya felt her lashes flutter. She hadn’t expected Rick to give up so easily. The man she’d once known had been full of fight. But the guy across from her had been beaten down—figuratively but, perhaps, also literally. Clutching his side was clearly not for show.
Tonya barred her arms across her chest. “Good. Then we can proceed.”
* * *
Tonya exited Kelner’s office not feeling much better than when she’d first walked in. Though she would be nearly four hundred thousand dollars richer in a year, she was near destitute at the moment. Supposedly, her unemployment check was in the mail, but it wouldn’t be much when it arrived, and she had little prospect of padding it with extra work. Her industry had been decimated, and it was doubtful that Philip would shell out for her cleaning services once she could pay rent. Most likely, he’d ask the line cooks to wipe down their individual stations and mop the floor on rotation.
Tonya strode through the law firm lobby, leaving Rick and Kelner to discuss other matters likely related to Rick’s misdeeds. She walked as if someone was following her. Her new sensitivity to germs added to the vulnerability she already felt being in Rick’s lawyer’s office. She needed to get outside.
Tonya exited through etched glass doors into an elevator bank. She pressed the call button and then scrolled through her missed messages, checking to see if any were from Layla. Her daughter hadn’t left a voice mail, she realized. However, there was a text from an unknown number.
Tonya clicked on it. “Hello, it’s Imani,” she read. “Please let me know when you return. I would like to discuss something with you.”
The message was the sort left by principals for the parents of misbehaving students or, perhaps, therapists unhappy with a patient’s progress. Maybe landlords wanting to know why the rent was overdue or what the funny smell was in the laundry machine. There was little chance Imani wanted to “discuss” something pleasant.
Before she could type her ETA, the arriving elevator dinged.
“Hey, Tonya. Hold it for me?”
Tonya wanted to pretend she hadn’t heard the man behind her. Unfortunately, Rick was at her side before the doors fully retracted. He entered as she passed through the doors.
Immediately, Tonya retreated to the far corner of the elevator. To Rick, it probably seemed that she was socially distancing in the tight space. Really, she was moving out of striking range. Acquiescing to giving her money didn’t mean that Rick was happy about it. Tonya didn’t think he’d hit her. But she couldn’t put anything past a man she already knew to be a liar, a cheat, and deadbeat dad.
“Does she really want to meet me?”
There was a whiny quality to Rick’s tone. What did he care? Tonya wondered. He’d made clear enough that he had no interest. Was it an ego thing? Did he like the thought of his daughter out there, pining for him?
“She’s an eleven-year-old girl coming into her own and learning about herself,” Tonya said. “She wants to understand her background. That’s all. It’s not about you specifically.”
Though she said it, Tonya knew that Layla’s desire to meet her father ran way deeper than knowing her genetic history. But she wasn’t going to give Rick the satisfaction of acknowledging that he meant something to a person he’d so adamantly refused to let mean anything to him.
“I heard she’s a great student.”
Tonya hadn’t told Kelner that, had she? “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s not true?”
“She’s an excellent student,” Tonya snapped. “But I asked where you heard that.”
Rick unhooked his mask to scratch at his stubble, revealing his full face. Objectively, it was as handsome as Tonya remembered, though the five-o’clock shadow looked dirty rather than sexy given her loathing. “Nate told me before.” Rick sighed, selfishly releasing a ton of unidentifiable particles into the air. “He was teaching a writing elective or something for kids after school. She’d taken it.”
An invisible fist squeezed her heart. Somehow, Layla’s absentee father knew something about her daughter that she didn’t. Layla had never mentioned taking Nate’s class. Why wouldn’t she have told her? Why wouldn’t she have shown her any of her work?
“He said her stuff was really good. Told me I might have a screenwriter in the family.”
Tonya pressed a hand to the elevator wall. It was descending too fast, a free-fall carnival ride. She felt her stomach rising into her throat. “You talked about her?”
“Not really. Nate wasn’t working much, so we didn’t talk all that often. I called him a week before he died about the status of a mutual business investment. In the interest of full disclosure, he told me that he was teaching my kid.”
“She’s not your kid,” Tonya spat. “You have to raise a child to call them that.”
“Fair enough.” Rick cracked a smile. “Nate told me that Layla’s very pretty. Looks a bit like me, he said.”
Tonya shuddered at the thought that Nate had been checking out her child. The man hadn’t been a pedophile—at least, not to her knowledge. But he had been a predator. She doubted he could look at her beautiful daughter and not recall what he’d done to her mother. Had the memory made him feel guilty, she wondered, or aroused?
Or had it made him angry?
When Layla’s preschool teachers had recommended that her “gifted” daughter apply to St. Catherine’s and try for a scholarship, she’d reached out to Nate. Her auditions regrettably hadn’t landed her any parts, she’d said, but news of how they’d gone wouldn’t do much for his career given millennial attitudes toward men who abused their power. She’d agreed to remain silent in exchange for Nate putting in a good word and endowing a scholarship. At the time, it had seemed the least he could do.
“After the dust settles with the divorce, I’d like to see her,” Rick said.
The elevator shuddered as it reached their floor. Tonya’s own body shook, less from the impact than from Rick’s sudden interest. She didn’t want her daughter’s self-esteem at all reliant on gaining his approval. Her kid had been happy not knowing her father. Surely, she could be happy again without him.
Tonya watched the doors open in silence.
“Tell her I only need to work out a few more things and it’s complicated,” Rick continued. “Tell her I’m trying not to unnecessarily upset people because of circumstances, you know, but once everything is out in the open, there won’t be anyone more to hurt. We can meet then.”
Tonya headed into the hallway, ignoring Rick calling her name. The way he’d phrased his request warned against responding. Rick didn’t think there was anyone to hurt after his divorce finalized. But that was only because his consideration didn’t extend beyond his immediate family. There was still someone who could very much be hurt by him. There was still Layla.
Fingers suddenly pressed into her shoulder. “I said wait!”
Tonya wrested from Rick’s grasp as she whirled around. “Don’t touch me.”
He held his hands up in mock surrender. “You wouldn’t stop. And I wanted to ask you…” Rick winced. He leaned forward and gripped his ribs. His breaths became short and shallow.
“Are you okay?” Tonya asked. She didn’t really care, she told herself, but she needed him alive and working to pay his child support.
“I had an accident. It’s given me some perspective.” He straightened with difficulty. “Are you really staying with your boss? Philip Banks?”
Tonya bristled. Had she known about Rick’s interest in seeing Layla, she wouldn’t have mentioned where she was staying. “What does it matter?”
“He’s not a good guy.”
Tonya tilted her head to the side, amazed at Rick’s capacity for selfishness. Rick had never been friends with Philip, so she doubted that he knew anything about the man. He simply didn’t want Layla around anyone remotely connected to his social circle. “You’ve nothing to worry about. I won’t tell him you’re Layla’s father, and Nate won’t either, obviously.”
Rick sneered. “Philip’s a thief. He stole from me, Nate, and another investor in Coffre. Guy totally misappropriated funds. You can’t trust him.”
“You think I should take your word for it?”
Rick gripped his side tighter. He looked like he needed to sit. “In this case, yeah. I know what he’s capable of. He’s a violent guy.”
Tonya crossed her arms over her chest. “Takes one to know one, huh?”
Rick’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You and your act. You pretend to be all macho and moral with guys that overstep with women. You threatened Nate, right? Got in his face after what happened with me? Told him what he did was wrong? You told me that you wouldn’t let him touch me ever again. But really, you protect men like that. They’re your friends. You just like being a bully.”
“And you—” Rick dragged a hand over his mouth, wiping away whatever insult had been moments from his lips. “Look. Keep Layla away from him. That’s all I ask.”
“I know what’s best for my daughter. Not you.”
Rick held up both hands in surrender again. The act seemed to pain him as one hand quickly returned to his side. He kept it there, holding his ribs. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said before limping toward the exit. “Remember, I warned you plenty.”